Now to this point I have only dealt with the early part of Davis’ life; it would require more time than we have available to do it full justice, so I won’t go into his later period. But I would like to touch on something that he gave to us which has been very important in the development of Spiritualism, so let’s move forward a few years to a lecture he gave at New York in 1863. In this lecture he described how children were educated in his Summerland of the Spirit World. There appeared to him, what he called, “garden schools”, or Children’s Lyceums designed to develop a child’s own inner potential rather than force feeding them information. He believed that children were “the repository of infinite possibilities bearing the image of an imperishable and perfect being”, and he urged those in the Spiritualist movement to establish similar schools here on earth. Well the concept took off like wildfire and the Lyceum movement took on a life of its own. Some people equate it to the Sunday school movement but it was more than that; it taught children to think for themselves. It also promoted physical as well as mental development and it transcended age barriers; adults became actively involved. It was the lifeblood of our church memberships for almost 100 years well into the middle part of the 1900's; it was the future. Over the years it has declined dramatically until it is now almost nonexistent and has suffered the same fate as many Sunday school movements, competing with Sunday shopping and sports, television and such things, and is now a shadow of its former self. It was relevant to its day, a simpler more hierarchal time but in today’s world we struggle to find a relevancy for it. Can it be the repository of knowledge that it once was, does it need to be redefined, or does it have any relevance at all in this modern era? I think we, as Spiritualists, have an obligation to figure it out; “we have a responsibility here”, because we have essentially become a religion of adults and if that continues we will ultimately lose our true relevance. In any event, in today’s world it is this Lyceum movement that Davis’ name is so closely associated with, as the Father of the Lyceum more so, I think, than with Spiritualism itself.
Now we all know that sometimes appearances are not what they seem and there is an element of this with our Mr. Davis; it was not all a bed of roses. Davis had his problems with Spiritualism. At one point in his career he threatened to leave the movement; he thought spiritualists were placing too much emphasis on the phenomenal side of the religion and ignoring the philosophy. He had also developed his own outlook on life he called it “The Harmonial Philosophy”. And I would like to clear up one point on this because many people are under the misunderstanding that The Harmonial Philosophy separated Davis from Spiritualism when, in fact, it was the exact opposite, it solidified his commitment to it; but it placed the emphasis on its true meaning rather than the phenomena. He said that without an understanding of the philosophy, the phenomena were useless. He complained that people were spending too much time in circles and séances looking for the sensational and not paying enough attention to the deeper side; he called it magical Spiritualism for which he had little use. The phenomena proved the realty of the Spirit World but the philosophy was its essence; many Spiritualists of the time disagreed; they still do. He drew his line in the sand and from that time on there were tensions between Davis and Spiritualism; he believed in Spiritualism but, it could be said, he was no longer a Spiritualist. Perhaps he never was a Spiritualist in the true sense of the word if one recognizes that Spiritualism is based on mediumship and depends on it for its existence. The reality is that if the phenomena were taken out of our churches they would be empty. So I would ask you to think about that and go back to the question of “What is a Spiritualist” and those three conditions...communications, noble faculties, and harmony.
In many respects by the time that Modern Spiritualism emerged he was way ahead of it. He could exist in the Spirit World at will; he knew all about it, he defined it. He redefined the concept of the Soul and its eternal progression. He predicted the communion of Spirit and the events at Hydesville. What had he to gain from Spiritualism except the satisfaction that he was right, but even this was tainted by his difficulty in understanding its inability or willingness to go beyond the phenomena. And yet he was convinced that Spiritualism was the answer to the social injustices in the world. He was, without doubt, a reformer on a quest for universal justice and in this mission he was totally uncompromising, willing to sacrifice all.
In the field of religion, his influence was profound. As John Leonard wrote in his book, The Higher Spiritualism, “At a period when few men dared attack the dogmas of the church, he was outspoken against them, attempting to tear down the artificial and unnatural parts of the orthodox religions and to establish a natural and rational religion in their place...a religion which should retain the real and basic ideas common to all religions, namely, God, immortality and goodness, but which should do away with the unnatural and man-made ideas of original sin, damnation and the special divinity of a Christ ”. Davis held that all men were divine, since the spirit of each is an integral part of the infinite spirit; is in fact the infinite spirit, and that there can be no difference or distinction in this. Jesus was more spiritually developed than most; but he was no more a son of God than all of us are sons of God.
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